Government & Politics

Thursday, September 2, 2010 – Posted by One (PST)

Series 3 / Day 3 of 3
It’s all about who’s looking into our life and why, and how we, individually and collectively, have come to say no way, no more.

Patriot Act: to Peel or Re-Peel?

Patriot Act: Peel or Re-Peel - A cartoon by "America's Most Wanted Cartoonist" - Khalil Bendib

Congress Should Re-Examine The Patriot Act: A Statement By The ACLU

The following statement was issued by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) to update its opposition to the Patriot Act.

The ACLU is urging Congress to use 2010 to examine all of our surveillance laws, (including the Patriot Act that was made law after the destruction of the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001)  and amend those that have been found unconstitutional or have been abused to collect information on innocent people, including last year’s changes to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) and the Attorney General Guidelines (AGGs).

On February 25, 2010, Congress passed a one-year extension of three expiring Patriot Act provisions without making much-needed changes to the overly broad surveillance bill. In late 2009, to avoid expiration on December 31, Congress briefly extended the provisions. Despite bills pending in both the House and the Senate to amend the three expiring provisions and other sections of the Patriot Act, Congress decided instead to move ahead with a straightforward re-authorization.

Despite the many amendments to these laws since 9/11, Congress and the public have yet to receive real information about how these powerful tools are being used to collect information on Americans and how that information is being used. All of these laws work together to create a surveillance superstructure – and Congress must understand how it really works to create meaningful protections for civil liberties.

The ACLU’s recent report, Reclaiming Patriotism, provides more information on parts of the Patriot Act that need to be amended.

• National Security Letters (NSLs). The FBI uses NSLs to compel internet service providers, libraries, banks, and credit reporting companies to turn over sensitive information about their customers and patrons. Using this data, the government can compile vast dossiers about innocent people. Government reports, as recent as February of 2010, confirm that upwards of 50,000 of these secret record demands go out each year. In response to an ACLU lawsuit (Doe v. Holder), the Second Circuit Court of Appeal struck down as unconstitutional the part of the NSL law that gives the FBI the power to prohibit NSL recipients from telling anyone that the government has secretly requested customer Internet records.
• Material Support Statute. This provision criminalizes providing “material support” to terrorists, defined as providing any tangible or intangible good, service or advice to a terrorist or designated group. As amended by the Patriot Act and other laws since September 11, this section criminalizes a wide array of activities, regardless of whether they actually or intentionally further terrorist goals or organizations. Federal courts have struck portions of the statute as unconstitutional and a number of cases have been dismissed or ended in mistrial.
• FISA Amendments Act of 2008. This past summer, Congress passed a law to permit the government to conduct warrantless and suspicion-less dragnet collection of U.S. residents’ international telephone calls and e-mails. This too must be amended to provide meaningful privacy protections and judicial oversight of the government’s intrusive surveillance power.

For more information, go here: http://www.reformthepatriotact.org/

Will You And I Have To Carry A National Identity Card That Controls And Possibly Prevents Our Personal Travel?

Credit Cards Threaten Privacy! (Says 1969 LAFree Press Article)

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More than 40 years ago(!) the LA Free Press printed this article.  Then, many readers might have thought this was ‘far out’.  And, now??

Credit Cards Threaten Privacy! Los Angeles Free Press, 1969

Credit Cards Threaten Privacy! Los Angeles Free Press, 1969

Yesterday, it was the Counter Culture. Today… it’s
Thursday, September 2, 2010

More Here @ 3 pm (PST)

Est. 1964 Re-Incarnated by Public Demand

This is the original, 60’s, counter culture, LA Free Press. Today’s Best Alternative View & Our Old Hippie Headlines, Too! A Head Trip for Smart Minds.

(This article refers directly to today’s issue of the Los Angeles Free Press. If you have not yet seen it, please, before reading further, click HERE.)

Yesterday, it was the Counter Culture. Today it’s…

all about who’s looking into our life and why, and how we, individually and collectively, have come to say no way, no more.

by Steven M. Finger

Private companies all have reasons for meddling into your life… money motivated, for sure.  After all, they are in business.  Any opportunity for them to find out personal information so that they can make a dollar… I think we can all understand that.

But the Patriot Act is something altogether.  Is it protecting our liberties, or chipping away at our civil rights, keeping us safe from terrorists or putting us under the same rule that seek to institute?

Today, I’m most sure that I do not want all factions of society to go unwatched, too many people who believe anti-social actions have value and the fact that one crazy can do much more harm than ever before.  But, still, and it is a difficult balance to strike, freedom with social order thru self-governance is the premise on which this country founded.  And the one that we’ve adopted and regularly pledge to continue.

And so, its intrusion rankles our majority, even if we do wish that every corner can be looked into to find the bad guys; the downside, the good that it keeps from blossoming, the opportunity it stifles for self vigilance is not worth the maintenance of that Act.

And our acceptance – tolerance – of its being is what leads to our consideration and submission to other things which would normally be dismissed out of hand.  A National ID Card?  At one time, even the mention of it, with or without the fresh thought of what had happened in other countries would have been enough to scuttle the idea.

If it’s not clear how far we’ve moved from that line, see the Los Angeles Free Press Archive Piece for today.  Did we actually think, back then, that the money-motivated merchants would do more than look over our shoulder for any other reason than to sell us stuff?  And were we so wrong to wonder?

Hold the line, before it is so faint that it will be hard to grasp.

Here are the keywords to our thinking today: Credit Cards, LA Free Press, Los Angeles Free Press Archives, Privacy Issues, ACLU, Art Kunkin, Cato, Janet Napolitano, National ID, PASS ID, REAL ID ACT,  FISA Amendments Act of 2008, National Security Letters, NSLs, Patriot Act, Political Humor, Big Brother, Surveillance Society, Changing Society, Self-Improvement, Social Change, Society & Culture

Here are links to today’s items:

[1] Patriot Act:  to Peel or Re-Peel?

[2] Congress Should Re-Examine The Patriot Act: A Statement By The ACLU

[3] Will You And I Have To Carry A National Identity Card That Controls And Possibly Prevents Our Personal Travel?

[4] Credit Cards Threaten Privacy! (Says 1969 LAFree Press Article)